


Young God of the Forest

by frogs_of_war



Series: Along the Silk Road [3]
Category: Vampires - Fandom
Genre: Animals, Forests, Gen, M/M, Monks, Vampires, researcher - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-10
Updated: 2014-11-09
Packaged: 2018-02-24 19:23:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,639
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2593403
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/frogs_of_war/pseuds/frogs_of_war
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>If a vampire didn't know what it was...</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

 

Hunger, like three days with nothing to eat. Hunger gnawing at the guts, eating from the inside out. Hunger, the worst hunger ever.

Thirst that makes the filthiest water irresistible. Desert thirst. Dry, scratching, aching thirst.

Darkness. Darkness that eats the world. A void both huge and small. Nothing.

Small scuffling. Reach out. A hand, without thought, comes to the mouth holding a small, warm body. Fangs sink in. Suck. Pain. Like the ache of the first drops of water into a parched mouth.

The body stops writhing. Suck, suck. Empty. Need another. Toss this one aside. Grab a second. Suck, suck, suck.

Small body. Fur. Hairless tail. Rat. Empty. Grab a third.

No repulsion to the ones who have nibbled in the past. They are food.

Fourth, fifth, more.

Hunger eases. Tired. Sleep.

– – — – –

Bad smell.

Dead rats? Yes.

Don’t like the smell, but hungry.

Do rats need to die?

Grab a rat. It writhes until the fangs sink in. Rats are small. Only suck a little. Let it go. Grab another.

Lots of rats. Enough to eat. Sleepy.

– – — – –

Wake. Warm. Rats cover. Haven’t been warm in… forever.

Not as dark. Or sight is back.

Big room. Stone walls. Stone floor. No windows. One door, filled almost to the top with rubble. Underground?

Rotting fabric in shreds on the walls. Bundles of it along one side of the room. Broken wood on the floor.

Rats come to hand. They rub against the legs, begging to be next.

Not alone, even if they are just rats.

– – — – –

We are the chosen.

We are better than the others. They scurry around, thinking only of themselves. We think of our god. He fills our lives.

He does not like the smell of death. We remove the dead ones.

He does not like dirty fur. We clean ourselves.

He does not like to be alone. We stay by him.

Does he want shinies? We will bring them.

Does he want cloth to sleep on? We will bring that, too.

He paces sometimes. Does he want out? We will find a way he can follow.

Our god is wonderful.

Our god is everything.

Our god is hungry.

We are his food.

– – — – –

Is there an outside? A world beyond this door? The room grows smaller and smaller each passing… day? Week? Hour?

There is no time in this room. Only hunger and sleep with bits of wakefulness. Wakefulness is longer now. And hunger not so overwhelming. Thirst no longer ever present.

Out. Is there an outside? Do stars still shine at night? Does the sun still warm the day?

The little ones skitter by the door. Follow them. Over the rubble pile. Through a dirt tunnel that shows signs of claws and teeth. Did they dig it out so this body could pass through?

The little ones. Useful, even if they are only rats.

Through a room filled with boxes and barrels. Up some stair. Through a door. Into a hall.

This house is filled with the living. Must get out. Into fresh air. Before the hunger comes.

A rat is at hand. Suck and go. Out the door. Into the night.

The wind is cold. The sky is full of stars.

Is this place familiar? No.

The city is different. The buildings are different. Hide when someone passes. The people’s clothes are different. Maybe.

How long? No matter. Get new clothes. These are rags.

Find an alley. Loiter at the opening. Catch a man’s eye. Then walk inside. It takes three tries before one gets caught. Distract him with this body. Call the rats to feed. No more than the man deserved, following a child into an alley. The money pouch is full. New clothes. A bath? How?

River. Go to the river. Steal clothes from a washing line. Leave a bit of money. Is it enough?

Water is cold, but cleaner than before. When was before? Long ago?

Pale sky. Time for home. Time for bed. Time for food.

The people of the house don’t wake. Down the stairs, through the tunnel, into the room.

Eat. Sleep. Stay.

– – — – –

Stay inside. In the room, until clothes shred or space feels too small. Upstairs the house is empty again. Full, empty, it doesn’t matter.

Boom. Boom. Crack. Light. Light found its way into the room. Reach. Touch. Light. Warm. Warm on hand, on face, on neck.

Warm is nice. Warm from the sun. Go see the sun.

Boom. The room shakes. Stones break. Stones fall. Must get out.

Path is… damaged. Rats open a new path. A path to the light.

Out. Out into the air. There is no house. No house above the room. Only broken wood and stone.

Out. But it is no longer day. The sky darkens. The air full of smoke and ash.

No buildings. Only ruins. And fire in the distance.

What?

Remember crying when tummy was empty. When others hurt this body. Left it bleeding in an alley. Not once, but many times.

Sobs. A scream. Go see. See and stop. Help like no one else did.

Run. Find the hurt. Find the pain. Stop the pain.

Scream. Nearer. Around a corner. In a house. A woman.

She is down. On the floor. A man pulls on her hair. He holds her on the ground.

Get him off. Get him off and call the rats to eat him.

No more than he deserves.

She weeps. Begs on the ground.

Thank you, she says. Thank you, kind sir.

She smiles through her sobs. She is not repulsed by the rats that gnaw on the body.

Lead me, she says. I will follow you anywhere.

Why?

She does not say. Is helping another odd?

Walk away without answering. What else can be done?

Walk down the dark streets. Over the rubble. Out of the broken city gates. Into the countryside. Past the camps of men outside the walls. Leave the fires behind.

The rats follow.

So does the woman.

– – — – –

I can’t reach him; he is so far ahead.

I follow. I'll follow until the day I die.

I climb over rocks and wade across streams, following, always following.

The rats leave a trail. Small prints in wet mud, gnawed plants or animals.

And when I can travel no further, every bone aching and my stomach growling louder than the beating of my heart, I find at my feet a dead hare or some such. After the first day twigs are always piled nearby.

It must be him. Who else would tell the rats to feed me?

I worry about getting too far behind when I cook, eat, and sleep, but every night the food is there, still warm.

– – — – –

My aches and pain ease, but my steady pace blocks out the memories. Well, not the memories, but the pain of the memories.

I am too tired at night to cry for my dead children.

My brothers have found me. They take me to a village. I try to tell them I am following the boy. They give me a warm bed and meals I don’t have to cook myself. But they whisper behind their hands. She is crazy, they say. Losing her children made her mad. The war made her mad. Life made her mad.

If life made me mad, why should I live? Why not find the man, the boy?

I will find him. I will make them take me to him.

Or I will leave and find him on my own.

– – — – –

She is here. The woman. The rats cleaned out a cave for her. They are hunting now for twigs for her fire, for prey for her to eat.

She brings a bundle with her. Bedding and clothes. Some for you, she says, since yours are rags.

You. Yours.

Is this one a person, too?

– – — – –

My family has come to the forest to bring Aunty things for longer than I can remember. Longer than Father and Grandpa can remember either.

Aunty does not age, Father says. She does but slowly, says Grandpa. Her hair was all black when he was a boy. Robert, he said, you may live to see her hair all white.

The boy, they say, never changes. Or at least it seems that way in the few glimpses of him they’ve ever had.

This is my first trip. I’m finally old enough to help take things to Aunty: flour, cloth, sewing things, and this time a stool. Her old one broke before Father’s last visit three months ago.

The trail is long. We live near the edge of the forest, but we slept last night under the tree branches and stars.

Father says that we might walk in circles for weeks if the boy doesn’t want us here. We bring in our own food. There is no hunting in the forest. The boy doesn’t kill anything. He does not eat.

Maybe he really is a god like our neighbors say.

– – — – –

Aunty greets the stool as if it were a new friend. I leave her and Father at the cave entrance and explore.

I see a deer, unafraid, taking purposeful steps down a path I hadn’t noticed. I pass wild geraniums, ivy, and ferns, saplings no wider than my smallest finger and trees whose bases I cannot reach around. Birds twitter in the distance and I hear the sounds of a river nearby. This place is the same as the rest of the forest, but different, too. Like hallow ground.

The deer walks into a clearing, crossing the short grass to the oak in the center. It stops near the base, heedless of the wolf lounging by the trunk. Other animals rest among the branches, gathering around a boy sleeping on a low branch. I have moved closer without realizing.

The deer licks the boy’s hand. A hawk rests on a branch at his feet. A lynx is overhead along with a songbird and a robin. Two black birds, a crow and a raven rest higher up the tree; a squirrel hangs onto the trunk mid-scurry, not far from an owl with open eyes despite the noonday sun, watching me as are the other animals.

A light breeze moves the upper branches and the sun and shade flicker across the boy’s fair skin. His hair, lighter than I have ever seen, is paler than straw.

He can’t be real. He is too beautiful.

He wears clothes like mine, out of cloth Mother wove for Aunty last year. He looks my age, but Father says that his eyes are older than the mountains. They are closed now, but the weight of so many pairs of inhuman eyes would make me turn and run, but my feet are rooted to the earth.

I cannot move. I cannot speak.

You will come, says a voice in my head. You will come when she dies.

Aunty won’t die. Grandpa says she will live forever.

No, says the voice. She will die soon. Everything must die. It is nature’s way. Be ready.

I am released.

I turn and follow the path back to Father and Aunty.

I saw him, I say.

I saw the God of the Forest.

– – — – –

I hear a call in my head. Aunty needs me. I am ready, I reply silently. I am ready to take Aunty’s place.

I pack and go. I don’t have a wife or children. I’ve known better since I was twelve. I am twice that old now.

And I come.

– – — – –

Aunty is still alive. She will die, she says, in her sleep.

She still looks as spry as ever. Her eyes twinkle when she tells me to keep the boy company. That’s my job, to keep him company and remind him that he is a person. I don’t tell her as she closes her eyes for her final sleep, but he’s not a person. Not in the same way I am. He is a god.

The God of the Forest.

The God of Life.

– – — – –

I hear him. Robert. I hear his thoughts and he hears me when I want him to. Like the animals, but I’ve never bit him.

I hear his thoughts, but never his voice. He does not talk to me. Not in all our time together, in the time it takes the river to change its course three times.

My animals hear him when he talks to others in the villages he visits to keep himself sane.

His thoughts and words are different. He always holds back when he speaks. The villagers don’t know he lives in the forest—with me.

I hear, through the animals, what the villagers say. I let him know when they begin to mention that he does not age. He does, but so slowly that they don’t notice.

He normally changes the villages that he visits every few years, but not now. Now he is in love. I feel it with him. His confusion, anxiety, and need.

I am his duty, nothing else.

He will leave me soon. I am ready.

– – — – –

The villagers are crazy.

They think sacrificing a child to the Forest God will bring back the rain. I tell them it won’t, but they say it is too late. That the men have already left with the child on their way to the forest.

I close my eyes to shut out the sight of Annette, the woman I love. She knows the words I have never spoken, that I am close to the Forest God. She worries about me, about herself.

The rains will come; they always do. All the sacrifice will do is anger the Forest God. He will leave, taking his blessing with him.

And me as well.

What kinds of fools are they, I ask, to think that an unwanted toddler would be good enough? A sacrifice must mean something. If he really is a harsh god, holding back the rain in his anger, nothing less than the best would do.

The men agree, but say it wasn’t their idea. If I run fast enough maybe I can catch them.

I look around. A rat raises its head over a jar on a shelf. He knows. He will deal with it.

The rains will come, he says in my head. The river will move again, back into the old channel where this village now sits.

The rain has been coming for a while. It was only a matter of time.

Take your Annette to safety.

– – — – –

They brought a boy. A small nameless one, as unwanted as I was in life.

They are smart to leave him alive. That is why I let them walk away. The river will come and take them and their houses. I have just to wait.

I send the rats to gnaw at his ropes. He is too scared to cry. I lift him up and take him to the river. I wash his small, dirty body. By the time he is clean, he has begun to chatter. I cannot understand his words, but I hear his feelings: fear, hunger, curiosity.

Robert will be here soon. He will raise this child for me.

That will be his final duty.

– – — – –

The rains came, wiping out all the villages built on the rich silt of the old riverbed. Annette and I are safe. So is little Robin, the orphan.

He wants him back. I argue, just a few more years. He says no. He is leaving, finding a new forest.

Most people believe he is already gone. That he left when the rains came six years ago, but he does not see time the same way we do.

His hold over me is gone. I have grey in my beard and children old enough to ask questions about my youth. As far as I can tell, I was young for over five hundred years, but nature has finally won.

I give in to his request, even though the boy is barely ten. He is a god and always gets his way in the end. Like the river and the villagers who left Robin in the forest.

He will go. I wish him well.

– – — – –

Master does not talk to me. Robert says that that is the way he is; silent as a gentle summer breeze. I watch him all the time. He moves like no one else. Slowly, steadily, gracefully, so it’s as if he did not move at all, but is suddenly across the glade.

He lifts his hand and a hawk lands on his wrist. He uses no guard. Master is in control of every muscle in his body. He is in control of the animals, too. He is not in control of me. He lets me do as I like, but he knows my every movement. I can do nothing without his knowledge.

– – — – –

I pretend to be sleeping near where he rests against a tree trunk, but instead I watch him through my lashes.

He reaches down and a rat climbs onto his fingers. He lifts the creature to his mouth and the small body sags in his grip.

As he sets the rat on the ground, a drop of blood drips down his chin. He looks me in the eye and a squirrel climbs up to his shoulder then down his arm to his hand, which he lifts again to his mouth.

He is drinking their blood. He knows I am awake. He knows I know.

He trusts me. That is enough.

For now.

– – — – –

I watch him take his meals, so much easier than mine. When I am hungry, a hawk, wolf, or lynx brings me a hare or other small animal. Then I skin, clean, and cook it. That is why Robert raised me for so many years, until I could take care of myself. Master cannot help me. He touches nothing dead. The rats come to take the offal away. They probably eat it.

Why does master drink from these creatures but not from me?

– – — – –

Robin watches me. He does not want me out of his sight, as if without his gaze, I will disappear.

He is nearly as big as I am now and he is always hungry. I do not seek out his thoughts, as I did with Robert. Losing Robert was too painful. I hear him sometimes even now, whenever he thinks of me. He bounces his children on his knee and wonders if I have left the forest yet.

I am going, slowly leaving the area I was in for another. I could walk for days untired, under the sun, moon, or stars, but Robin, he is a growing boy, who eats and sleeps and tires easily during the long walks. He does not like sleeping each night in a different place and cannot see in the dark. I let him stay in one place for a time, then move him on.

I go toward a warmer climate. We no longer have people to provide us with clothes; soon he will outgrow everything Robert sent with us. Soon our clothes will be rags. I will have to send the rats to steal, but I have no money for them to leave behind. It is not right to take from people who have nothing.

I will find someone with much. Maybe tempt a man into an alley again, but I will need a big city for that. I would find one I’m sure, if I simply followed a road far enough. But I don’t want Robin with me when I do.

– – — – –

I watch Master eat. He eats every day, but gets no bigger. Soon I will outgrow him. I don’t want that.

The animals he sucks from never grow old. The rats are the same rats, the hawk the same hawk, the wolf the same wolf. They have the same markings as the ones Robert explained to me when I was little. They are the same animals.

Robert barely aged as well, in all the time they were together. Why is it just me? Why am I the only one growing older? Did he suck from Robert, too?

Master, I say, suck me as well.

He shakes his head. Then he gets up and leaves. He takes most of the rats with him and the owl, but the other animals continue to feed me. A hare leads me to a patch of tubers. I cook them in coals from the fire.

Why did I say it? I did not want him to leave me? What will I do if he doesn’t come back? What did I say that was so bad anyway?

I cry myself to sleep once again.

– – — – –

Master wakes me with a gentle tap. Am I dreaming? No. He is back. I am happy again. He gently brushes the tears from my eyes. His hands are so soft. I nuzzle him like the animals do and he laughs.

– – — – –

Master asks how I fared without him. He is talking to me. I am so happy. I tell him how lonely I was.

He hugs me close to his cool chest, saying that the next time we part it will be my decision. But that isn’t so. I will never willingly leave him. Maybe that means we will never part.

He brought back clothes, fancy clothes—a huge bundle’s worth. The clothes are different than I am used to, the cloth is smoother, the colors brighter, with more buttons than anything Annette made for me. I try on a pair of pants the same color as the oak tree’s bark and a tunic as green as willow leaves.

At the bottom of the bag is a bright blue tunic, as blue as the sky on a hot summer’s day, and so shiny that it reflects the sun like still water.

It is beautiful, but it is big.

Master says it is for me, when I am bigger, that I am growing so fast I will fit it soon.

I throw it down. I don’t want it, I say, I never want to be that big.

His laughter makes me angry and he stops. Everything must grow, he says. Everything alive does.

But Robert didn’t age, I argue.

Robert was an adult, he says. When you are grown your aging will slow down as well. Every child should he allowed to grow up.

I disagree. He is still small.

I did not choose this path, he says, and would never, ever wish it upon another.

What is so bad, I want to ask, about never aging, about drinking blood of animals instead of eating their flesh?

I don’t ask. What if he leaves again? What would I do?

– – — – –

Master is smaller than me now. He doesn't even reach my shoulders. I grow and grow while he never changes.

The forest we are in is different. It has fruit trees in it although the fruit isn’t fit to eat. Master laughs at my expression when I bite a bitter apple.

He loves me, I know. But why doesn’t he want to keep me forever?

He let the lynx go. The wolf and the deer, too. He says that this forest wouldn’t support them, so he sent them away before we crossed the plain.

We are headed for the mountains. Or the other side of the mountains. I don’t know.

He lets the animals go and gets new ones. I am not his first person. I fear I will not be the last. I want to stay with him forever.

– – — – –

Robin asked me again to feed from him. No matter how many times I tell him he does not understand. This time he stalked away before I could repeat that the animals I suck are no better than pets. And a person is not a pet.

He does not understand. He has never seen the result of treating a person like an animal.

I have. The memories are fuzzy, but the feelings are strong—fear, pain, sorrow.

I wake from those memories determined to protect Robin as much as I can.

But I fear it will not be enough.

– – — – –

He does not want me.

That is why he lets me age even though I am fully grown. He wants me to grow old and die, so he will be rid of me.

– – — – –

Patience, he tells me. All in good time.

Why does he wait? Why not now?

If he really means to at all.

– – — – –

A pet, he says. I will be a pet if he sucks. But I would rather live forever as his pet than have a short life as his nothing.

– – — – –

Is master the only one like this? There must be others. I will find them. One of them will surely have a way to keep me near Master forever.

– – — – –

Robin is gone.

He left to follow his own path. He thinks it will lead him closer to me.

It won’t. It can’t.

He will never live with me again.

– – — – –

I found them. The others like Master. But they are not like Master at all. I did not see it at first. Blinded by my desire, I did not see what they really were.

My new master, who controls me with his thoughts, sits now with others of his kind feasting on the dead and dying.

They care nothing for life. They kill all their prey. And all their prey is human. Young, old, clean, dirty, pretty, ugly are all the same to them.

A dying woman raises her hand to me. She wants me to end her suffering.

I am torn. She is almost dead already, but if I kill her the others will simply find another victim. I close my eyes and bite her, sending her the ecstasy that she never knew in life. I drink until she is dead, hating myself with every swallow.

Some of our kind have human pets, keeping them healthy and happy. But the troop I fell in with thrives on pain and death. I’ve tried to show them a better way, but they never learn.

I will leave. I have to, for my own sanity. I will leave and find Master. Maybe he will know a way to help me.

I hate what I've become.

– – — – –

My little Robin, says Master, his voice so sweet and gentle after all these years of separation.

I am no longer his. I ran away myself. I am no longer little. This body will forever be in its twenties and the naivety I used to carry fled with my humanity.

I am nothing, I say, less than nothing.

I will help you.

He already has. I barely started looking for him when he appeared before me.

Follow the rats, he says. They will lead you to a man who can help you. I will… distract those who follow.

I am not sure how many are behind me; I killed many of the ones I was with, the ones who loved the pain of others.

I fall to the ground and tell him my deeds. The deaths I’ve caused, the need for blood so great that I sucked until the victim was dead, that the victims were human. That I was—am no better than an animal.

He leans down and bestows a fatherly kiss on my brow. I know this, he says, and other things. Did you think I would send you off alone?

My face burns with my shame, but he tells me to hurry. Dawn will soon be with us.

He knows that I can no longer stand the light of day.

I am disgraceful, but he loves me still.

– – — – –

They come. The others, following my little Robin back to the nest he has outgrown. They—the others—talk together, work together likes friends or colleagues. I’ve never had one. Aunty was like a mother, as far as I can tell. Robert was always a high priest, more full of awe than love, and Robin… I wanted so much for Robin to be a friend. But instead he is a son.

Or at least I have the same hopes, worries, and regrets that the men my animals overhear do when they talk about their children.

But these ones, they come into my woods. They are city dwellers and are spooked by night noises.

I am scared of nothing, although I am certainly not the scariest thing out here.

They come and I stand in the moonlight looking them over until they see me.

I know them. I have spent time with them, sending my rats to their dwellings to live. I know them. I know each of them. I know their strengths and their weaknesses. I know what they know about me. And how much they believe.

Most of them will never leave my forest alive.

– – — – –

We follow the traitor into the woods, but here the scent of his trail is masked by that of a much older of the kin.

The old one shows himself to us, unafraid. Then he disappears. It is a game of cat and mouse. He is one lone mouse followed by over a hundred cats. He will not get away.

– – — – –

I follow the ones chasing the young stray. He, Robin, fascinates me. He was the most ignorant, knowledgeable new kinsman I have ever seen. I tried to get him from the Dexers, but I was not quick enough. Maybe tonight I can save him from certain death.

– – — – –

He leads us through the woods, across meadows, down streams. He is fast, but not fast enough. We never lose sight of him.

– – — – –

I stay in the woods until I am sure everyone is following the old one. Should I hunt for Robin? If I do, will the others find him through me?

I will not risk it. I will follow the others and see for myself what an old, powerful kinsman looks like.

– – — – –

Why can’t we catch him? Dawn will be here soon. Oh, he ducks into a cave. We will follow. Leave someone at the door, so the stragglers will not miss the entrance. He will not escape.

– – — – –

Even though I started far behind, I catch up fast. Broken branches and disturbed ground lead my way. Why are there so many markers? We can walk through a crowded room without brushing anything or even making a breeze.

This looks like a trail someone left to be followed.

I will be careful.

_– – — – –_

As the sky turns from black to grey, one of the others says the kinsman entered a cave. If we hurry we can make it. No other shelter presents itself.

– – — – –

Inside the cave is chaos. A hundred or so kinsmen mill about. Many are tired; dawn is coming. But the old kin is here. Is he powerful enough to stay awake all day? Are any of us safe here?

I would leave, leave these searchers, save myself, but the sky is already pink with dawn. I cannot stand the light. None of us can.

– – — – –

A shout rings out. They have found him. He is trapped. The message is to come and fight him. I follow, but not too close. I do not want to be involved in this battle.

I am the last to reach the large cave. In the center is a young man—No, a boy.

Power emanates from his skin like heat from a fire. The others ring him, but at a distance; they are afraid to approach him. When he takes a step near one of us, that one can’t help but step back. Still they manage to surround him.

Will I need to step in? Would it do any good? Does he need help anyway?

He stands with a curious expression. Not fear. Nothing even close to fear. But it couldn’t be confidence or excitement.

Could it?

– – — – –

They are all in place. My animals are ready. And so is the sun.

The dirt that covered the top of the cave begins to trickle down as my animals scurry back to keep from falling with it. When a mole lands on the loose dirt falling from the ceiling, I tuck it in my pocket to save it from getting crushed.

I step aside as the rest of the ceiling falls. I climb the pile. The sun is warm on my skin, but the screams of the dying are horrible.

Some of these men, these monsters are burning alive. Others are huddled against the walls, seeking the little shelter available.

They will not all die. Only the monsters.

– – — – –

The old one stands on the pile of rock and dirt in full sunlight. The sun shines off his skin like it is the moon. His clothes, pale as milk, reflect the sun into my eyes and his silvery hair fairly glows.

I catch his eye and he smiles. Not an evil smile or a mad one, but the smile of a child who has just won a game.

Innocence radiates off of him. No one would believe that he’d had just killed so many of his own kind. I don’t believe it, even though I saw it.

Who is this boy?

– – — – –

Take them out of the light, he says, you will not burn.

I do not believe him.

He points at a man on the ground, whose legs are trapped under the rumble; his upper body is in the sun. He screams like he is burning, but his skin is only slightly pink.

You are one of those, he says. Take him and the others and sleep. You will be safe.

He climbs up the dirt and jumps to the ground above. Animals surround him. A falcon lands on his shoulder, a wolf stands at his feet, a squirrel climbs him like a tree to his other shoulder.

Do not kill for fun, he says and turns his back on me and the hole.

I know him.

He is the God of the Forest.

 


	2. Scholar

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Excerpts from the journals of Brother Jeorek
> 
> (Or What happens to Robin)

**Entry 742 appended:**

I was wakened tonight after dark, necessitating the burning of precious tallow, but for once I am not loathe. I heard scratching at the door, not like a hound's, but something much smaller. The noise would not cease though I sought to ignore it, so I roused myself from bed to investigate. When I sat up the noise stopped, but started again soon after. It stopped when I got to my feet, but then started yet again. I called out from my bedside, but none answered.

I do not normally fear night noises, but this one was eerie as if the maker could see me. The night felt heavy and the air so thick I could not breathe. I squared my shoulders and girded my loins before striding to the door and opening it swiftly to take the maker of the noise unaware. But I was the one in shock for not only was nothing on the step that could have made such a sound, but as I looked down an owl flew over my head through the doorway. I'm not sure how I knew it was an owl for I saw nothing more than a blur and darkness until I had the tallow lighted. The owl sat peacefully on my desk although owl's talons were not meant for such, but at the time I was more worried about how to get it back outside. It did not move though I tried to scare it. Even my touch could not roust it from the spot.

Finally I gave up and closed the door. From that distance the owl looked familiar; the bars on its wing were in a pattern I knew. I quickly searched my papers for the woodcut of The Forest God at Rest and to my delight the owl among the oak's branches looked very like the owl on my desk. I needed to make a sketch for myself. But my delight was short-lived for as I turned to fetch more ink my eyes fell on my bed.

A man sat among my bedclothes watching me with dark eyes. He was covered in blood and the smell assaulted my nose. How had I not seen him enter? How had I not heard him, smelled him? I brought the tallow closer and found myself staring at the vestige of a young man. His dark hair was full of leaves and twigs, but shiny. It fell in ripples down his perfect neck. His clothes were dirty and torn, but under the mud and blood they were heavy and looked expensive. The blood was not his. I could tell this at once. He looked me over and sighed. "I need a windowless room and fresh blood. Any animal will do."

His tone was wistful as if paradise had slipped from his grasp. But he expected to be obeyed.

My heart began to beat again when I realized he did not mean to bite me. "I have but one goat, good sir. Once she is gone I will have nothing."

He shook his fine head. "I will not harm her. She might outlive you."

I do not pretend to know what he meant.

I brought my goat in for he refused to step outside. And if he drank from her, I could not tell the spot. I will look more carefully after the sun rises. He asked for water and stripped before me to clean himself. I would have heated some. He has to be a gentleman, whatever else he is, but he said there was no time. He wrapped in my blanket and I locked him in the cellar as per his request.

And now I wait for what dawn will bring.

**Entry 743:**

Preceding sketch is of the owl. It flew away at dawn. The goat is wound free and she did not seek to kick her bucket as I milked her. I cannot concentrate today. I have read over a Forest God sighting three times without comprehending the words. The man rests in the cellar. I dare not open the door.

**Entry 743 appended:**

I thought I would not sleep, but woke to pounding. The gentleman needed my goat again. When I opened my door, the goat was on the step. She rushed to him like a long lost friend and he continued to pet her after he lifted his mouth from her neck. She again has no wounds and her paddock was closed. How did she get out?

**Entry 744 appended:**

He sits on my bed and wears my robes, but he does not look like a monk in them. I ask him what it feels like to spend his days in the dark and he tells me that he did not always live this way. He hopes to return to the light. He is amused that I write down what he says; he is of no consequence. I deny that vigorously. He must be a gentleman. He says that clothes do not make the man. They only make his image. We discuss the differences between appearance and reality until the night fades.

**Entry 751 appended:**

My schedule is in disarray. The time between the sun's setting and Robin's waking is too short. I must stay up with him all night for he needs company. He saw the woodcut today—tonight. He says the owl is the same, but the wolf and the deer are different. He will not tell me how he knows.

**Entry 752:**

Robin tells me not to waste my tallow for his comfort for he can see in the dark. I balk at this for I want light as I share a room with someone who can suck my blood. He does not, but he could. The goat is always happy to see him. She looks none the worse for being his nightly meal. I washed his clothes and mended the tears but Robin is reluctant to wear them. Tonight we discussed time. Philosophy is the only thing I miss about the abbey and Robin does not feel the need to spout scripture at every turn.

**Entry 789:**

My fellow monks arrived today. I have no progress to show them. They remind me I am a hermit scholar. But I am neither anymore. At least they caught me before I went to bed at dawn or I would never have lived it down. I stack the sacks they brought outside the cellar. I cannot open it with Robin inside. Will even that much light hurt him?

**Entry 790:**

Robin woke me with a breath against my neck. My body reacted before I knew what I was about, hardening as if I was a youth. He laughed, stroking my cheek. I bristled and pulled away. He asked me why I was a monk and I confessed to wanting to learn to read. Many men pick up the cowl for baser motives. He looked at me, cocking his pretty head. He cannot read, he confessed. He will tell me why tomorrow night. Then he opened my door and stepped out into the moonlight. My mind is a mess and my body wants things I have too long denied it. Otherwise why would I long for him, handsome and witty though he may be?

**Entry 791:**

Robin blew out my tallow and pulled me down beside him on my bed. My heart beat faster than a bird's. He took my hands in his and told me that he was raised by the Forest God. My joy at finding a key witness for my life's work almost blankets my disappointment that he did not want to touch me.

**Entry 807:**

I spend days writing down what Robin's tells me about the Forest God. He is hungry for stories as well. I told him about the poor who stand just outside the tree line and ask for food and how hares run out of the forest or fall from the skies and of a disastrous hunting party that a new lord led when he inherited part of the forest. I only told him of one hunt. He does not like to think his master, as he calls him, would hurt people. He would much rather hear stories about the Forest God's bounty.

**Entry 810:**

I am a dirty old man. I should burn my journals and all my research. Robin woke me by climbing into my bed. When I felt his body beside mine, I could not help but touch it. He is sitting against the door sulking. The sun is still up. Why is he awake? I am too angry to ask. I should have had more control. He should not have tempted me. I must seek God's forgiveness.

**Entry 810 appended:**

When I began to pray Robin got to his feet. I heard his steps before a pillow was tossed at my head. When the feather had floated down enough to see, Robin had gone out the door into the sunlight. Did he stride to his death because I touched him? Or because I regretted it?

**Entry 960:**

My research is almost finished. I have had nothing to interrupt my work. My last visitors brought me a century old tale of flood and ruin brought on by a child sacrifice. I wonder if that child was Robin. I will never know. My goat sulks. She bangs on my door at dusk and glares at me in accusation. She knows it is my fault Robin is gone. She still gives milk all these months after her last kid. I am grateful, but I have no excuse to trade her for another and her presence reminds me of him. I will never forgive myself.

**Entry 990:**

Cool hands wake me. They are smooth as silk as they lightly trace my stubbly chin. I am free, says the voice of my daydreams and nightmares, I have returned. Lips cover mine. Hands lift my shirt and skin presses against mine. A tongue brushes my lips. This is the way all my nightmares begin. I do not protest. I savor every moment until the fateful one when I pushed him away. I have relived it so many times. I open my mouth to him and he tastes different then I remember, less of blood and more of something unimaginably ancient.

I am bare and under him. His hands move on my skin. I open my eyes, but it is too dark to see. He laughs deep in his throat and I am lost to all the world but him. My body responds as if I were created for this purpose. I want to continue this dream forever, never walking until I die. He pushes his hard shaft against me and shifts my knees up and out. I do not fight him. I would put up with any indignity to talk to him one last time. The pressure doesn't let up and I feel a cry growing in my throat. He shifts his mouth to my neck and hard, smooth fangs come before ecstasy.

I wake alone the rising sun shining through my window. The ache at my loss is the greatest I've ever felt. I want to die. I want to have never been born.

Silently, Robin steps into my view. Sleepy head, he says, grinning. I sit up so fast I am dizzy. He runs his fingers along my arm and kisses my forehead, my cheek, my lips. You are mine, he says. Master doesn't understand possession, but I want you beside me forever. Now you will never die as long as I'm alive.

Relief fills me, but I can't help but ask, Will I have to drink blood? No, he laughs again. You are like the goat, or like Master's owl. You are mine.


End file.
